Professor Michael Clague

Cell Signalling Laboratory
University of Liverpool
Liverpool

Understanding the genes behind kidney cancer

Professor Michael Clague is based at the Cell Signalling Laboratory at the University of Liverpool. He is investigating changes in cells caused by an inherited condition called Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome, which can lead to kidney cancer. His work is aimed at identifying new ways to treat kidney cancer, helping more people to survive the disease.

Although Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome is rare, affecting around 2,000 people in the UK, roughly four out of 10 people who have it will develop kidney cancer. This is because they have inherited faults in a gene called VHL, which normally helps to prevent cells from becoming cancerous.

Professor Clague is studying the changes in kidney cancer cells that are caused by these gene faults. He wants to find out more about they affect the molecular messages that tell cancer cells to grow. In the future, it may be possible to find drugs that block these messages, leading to new and better ways to treat the disease.